1. Field of Art
The present invention generally relates to sharing a content item on a social networking service, more specifically to sharing a content item and location information associated with the content item using the social networking service.
2. Background of the Invention
As more computing devices, electronic devices and mobile devices come equipped with the capability to detect the location of the device, more users are using these devices to access various location-based services. The localization technology for detecting the location of the devices is becoming less costly to implement, and thus, contributing to the wide adoption of the technology. As a result, conventional devices such as laptop computers, cell phones, smartphones and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants) that previously did not implement localization technology are now coming equipped with capability to detect the geographic location of the device.
Widely used location-based services include, among others, identifying businesses or services nearest to the user, locating people on a map, providing turn-by-turn navigation instructions, providing advertisements relevant to the location, and assisting recovery of lost or stolen asset (e.g., stolen car). Some of these location-based techniques use information locally stored on the devices while others require access to information stored on a remote server.
The location of the device may be determined based on a variety of technologies. The most widely used technology for detecting the location is GPS (Global Positioning System). GPS based technology uses radiowave signals transmitted by satellites orbiting around the earth to pinpoint the location of GPS enabled devices. Cell identification is another system used for locating the devices. Cell identification technology uses identification of a telecommunications cell in communication with the mobile device, the signal strength of the communicating cell and its neighboring cells to estimate the location of the mobile device. Although generally less accurate than the GPS technology, cell identification technology estimates the location of the mobile device with reasonable accuracy, especially in urban environments. Other location detection technologies make use of digital broadcast transmitters to locate a device.
Some existing services allow a first user to obtain the location of a second user's GPS enabled mobile device. Generally, the first user must provide a cell phone number of the second user's mobile device to the service, so that the service can identify mobile device, and report its location to the first user. This approach requires the first user to know the cell phone number of each second user that he wishes to track. However, a first user may not know the cell phone numbers of these other users. Further, the first user must manually enter this information to the service, which can be a time consuming, and error prone process.